14 Comments
How do you know when to use ellos are ellas...im aware that : (os) is (masculine) and (as) is (feminine) but in this situation i didn't know if its ellos or ellas??
1812
Instead of "They are speaking French," one of the correct answers is listed as "The are speaking French" in the database.
Because they pronounced it ellos and the sentence never mentioned a female so it is automatically masculine
"They are talking French" is not OK. What's the difference between speaking and talking?
Talking and speaking can be used interchangeably in some instances: They are talking = They are speaking. However talking is not usually used when referring to languages like this... only speaking. In English one speaks a language... one doesn't talk a language.
They are speaking French is marked wrong. The corrected answer is "They speak French." Should my answer have been correct? is there some nuance I'm missing here?
Yes, you are correct. "Ellos hablan francés" can be translated as They speak French or They are speaking French. For me, the choice depends on the context and what I am trying to emphasize. If someone asked me ¿Que lengua habla Julia? and you are not in the room, I would consider that to be "What language does Julia speak." If you are on the other side of the room and speaking with someone, I would consider that to be "What language is Julia speaking." Because there was no context here, I answered: "They speak French." With Duo, I always use the simplest answer unless it does not seem to fit..
Should make it to where accent marjs are not needed to count correctly
